Social media and healthcare are a powerful combination. Social networks take become an of import health and information resources. However, they can as well get a source of disinformation.

For example, 76% of respondents to a survey said they used social media "at to the lowest degree a little" to learn about COVID-xix. However, 63.vi% said they were unlikely to check the information they found on social media with a health professional person.

Healthcare professionals on social media can both inform the public and aid to stop the spread of data that's untrue.

It can be hard to know how to navigate the challenges of social media in healthcare. Providers, agencies, and brands need to create engaging social content. That content needs to be informative, timely, and authentic. At the aforementioned time, you lot need to follow all relevant rules and regulations.

In this post, we look at the many benefits of using social media in healthcare. We also provide some tips on how to go on your social channels compliant and secure.

Bonus: Go a free, customizable social media policy template to quickly and easily create guidelines for your company and employees.

Raise awareness

Social media is a key way to raise public sensation well-nigh new, emerging, and annual wellness concerns.

"Wellness care systems must provide trusted information on immunization, influenza virus, therapy, ebola, you lot name information technology." That solid communication comes from Michael Yoder. He's the social media consultant for Spectrum Wellness.

Raising awareness tin be as elementary as reminding followers about common sense wellness practices. Or addressing mutual healthy living concerns.

It can too exist a good tool for public outreach campaigns, since you lot can specifically target relevant population groups:

Government of New Brunswick targeted screening ad

Source: Government of New Brunswick

Simply when things are changing fast, social media is a key way of ensuring the public is aware of the latest issues, guidelines, and advisories. One way to go the information out there is to share information directly in your social posts.

Another skillful option is to apply social media to direct followers to apparent sources of electric current information. This could hateful pointing them to your website, or to public wellness social accounts.

Raising awareness about apparent sources makes it easier for your followers to counter inappropriate healthcare social media claims they see in posts from their own social connections.

On that note, allow'southward talk about the elephant in the room when it comes to social media and healthcare advice: misinformation.

Gainsay misinformation

Social media by their very nature aid spread information speedily to diverse groups of people. That's nifty when the data is fact-based, helpful, and clear.

Unfortunately, there's also a lot of health misinformation on social networks.

Sometimes the misinformation comes in the form of untrue statements. These are relatively hands debunked. You can simply cite published inquiry or the latest information from a credible wellness source similar the CDC or WHO.

But sometimes, the creators and disseminators of misinformation utilize a reputable institution's name to requite their statements brownie. In this case, information technology's of import for the institution named every bit a reference to clarify that they are not the source.

⚠️ Misinformation on COVID-nineteen ⚠️These infographics circulating are not from UNICEF.For updates and safety tips on…

Posted by UNICEF Republic of kenya on Wednesday, March 11, 2020

But at that place'southward also misinformation in the form of "facts" presented without context, or in the incorrect context. Once again, citing research and information from credible sources is the best approach. Merely, this may require a softer impact. People are strongly inclined to believe information that supports their existing worldview.

"Sometimes I'll apply [Twitter] to signal out obvious misinformation," Dr. Peter Hotez told the American Medical Clan. "But by and large I will use it to explain my thinking nearly an important or emerging infection."

Here's Dr. Hotez providing important context on herd immunity to COVID-19:

Crisis advice

More people at present become their news from social media than from newspapers. For those anile 29 and younger, social media is the most common source of news, topping all other data sources. That makes social a central place to share breaking information.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, people turned to government health officials for information. Canadian provincial medical health officers have used social media and healthcare advice effectively during this time of crunch.

For instance, the Government of British Columbia continues to host press conferences to update the public on the latest news and policies related to the pandemic. The press conferences are streamed in total every bit Facebook Live videos, likewise equally on more traditional news outlets.

Live video on social platforms provides a mode for those who don't have admission to local Boob tube programming to access announcements in existent fourth dimension.

And pinned posts and cover images can directly people to key resources at a glance.

Government of Alberta vaccination information

Source: Authorities of Alberta

Managing and sharing health information is peculiarly challenging in a time of crisis. The American Wellness Lawyers Association, the American Society for Healthcare Risk Direction, and the Social club for Healthcare Strategy and Market Evolution suggest that accelerate preparation is key to an constructive crisis response.

Hither are some of their key points to assistance you prepare:

  • Identify key stakeholders, a main contact, and a spokesperson
  • Know what to do in the first five minutes of a crisis
  • Build trust with your audition—including your internal audience

Expand the attain of existing resources

Medical professionals oft learn near new data and best practices through medical journals and conferences. Social media can help expand the reach of these existing information-sharing platforms.

With in-person events cancelled for 2020, the European Order of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) created a serial of webinars. In improver to a defended website, they shared the webinars through live video on YouTube and Facebook. They likewise live-Tweeted the events.

ESICM was surprised that some of their highest viewership came from outside Europe. This was an audition they would not have reached through in-person events.

Answer mutual questions

Health authorities and healthcare organizations are of import information sources on diverse health concerns.

Social tools offer artistic ways for healthcare professionals to address mutual questions. For example, the World Health Organisation adult a Facebook Messenger chatbot. It can answer questions, directly citizens to the right resources, and counter misinformation.

World Health Organization Facebook messenger chatbot

Source: World Wellness System

Public health monitoring

People post well-nigh everything online, including their wellness. Hashtags like #flu tin reveal when diseases are popping up in new locations. With the right social media monitoring tools, public wellness organizations can even get a sense of the severity of symptoms.

For instance, a leap 2020 study institute an association between the number of Tweets mentioning telehealth and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in a particular state.

graph of association between tweets mentioning telehealth and COVID-19 cases

Source: Massaad, E., & Cherfan, P. (2020). Social Media Data Analytics on Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cureus, 12(four), e7838.

Professors Michael Paul and Marking Dredze explicate how this works in their volume, Social Monitoring for Public Health:

"Social media offers advantages over traditional data sources, including real-time data availability, ease of access, and reduced price. Social media allows us to ask, and answer, questions nosotros never thought possible."

A contempo review study plant that health data from social sources has improved disease prediction. That's particularly true for flu and influenza-like illnesses.

And a study in the Almanac Review of Public Health reported the following:

"While Twitter is past far the nearly frequently used platform in digital surveillance, many others have been used besides. For instance, Facebook 'like' patterns correlate strongly with a wide range of health weather condition and behaviors, and Instagram timelines have been used to identify adverse drug reactions."

Social media tin also depict attention to crowdsourcing wellness information initiatives like Outbreaks About Me.

Citizen engagement

Healthcare problems tin can be tricky to talk about, even with doctors. That'due south specially truthful for subjects like mental health, where social stigma tin foreclose people from seeking the professional support they need.

During the pandemic, JanSport created a series of resource using the hashtag #LightenTheLoad. The goal for the backpack company was to support its immature customers, starting in the 2020 back-to-school season that wasn't.

Through the campaign, they provided access to mental health resources for young people, including a series of Instagram Alive chats with professional therapists.

This is a expert instance of how healthcare professionals tin can partner with brands outside the healthcare sphere on social.

They too provided data on how people could accomplish crisis support if needed.

JanSport crisis support phone number

Source: JanSport

Here's another case. A coalition of more 1,000 organizations and healthcare institutions launched a campaign under the imprint The Fight Is In United states. The goal was to encourage people who had recovered from COVID-nineteen to donate their plasma for its valuable antibodies.

Running a host of glory-based ads across Facebook and Instagram, the campaign reached 3.95 one thousand thousand people.

Bonus: Get a free, customizable social media policy template to quickly and easily create guidelines for your company and employees.

Get the template now!

The Fight Is In Us COVID-19 plasma donation campaign

Source: Instagram

Patient support

Nigh 40% of young people (ages xiv to 22) have used online tools to connect with others with similar health challenges. That includes social media groups.

That connection tin have real benefits for patients. A recent study in the International Periodical of Environmental Enquiry and Public Health examined the furnishings of Facebook and WhatsApp groups in supporting veterans' PTSD. Many of the report participants expressed ways in which they received support from these groups:

"At 10 o'clock at night, I messaged the group and got instant responses. The group knows what's going on. Yes, we know each other so well."

"If I get out the WhatsApp group, I volition immediately go a bulletin from the admin, 'What happened, everything okay?' If you lot get out, y'all take to go through a person. Even if y'all don't experience like it, you have to say what's going on."

Of course, there are privacy concerns when discussing health online. This could be a good employ of Facebook underground groups, which practise not show upwardly in search results. Users have to be invited to bring together.

Inquiry recruitment

Social networks offer an opportunity to connect with potential report and survey participants.

Similar brands, researchers and healthcare organizations need to understand social media demographics. Combined with social ad targeting options, this allows you to connect with the correct audience for studies and surveys.

Connected & Open Inquiry Ethics is a project of the University of California San Diego. The group helps researchers found guidelines for ethical research using new digital tools. Social networks are amidst those tools.

Marketing

62% of U.S. healthcare marketers identified social media every bit the marketing aqueduct with the most potential opportunity in 2020.

bar chart showing social media as marketing channel with highest opportunity

Source: 2021 MM+M/HealthLink Dimensions Healthcare Marketers Survey

CVS partnered with WebMD on a Twitter campaign that benefitted both brands. CVS sponsored WebMD content, including through a custom Twitter Dilate partnership that brought in 30-million pre-roll video ad views for CVS.

Brainwash and share valuable content

Equally nosotros said above, many people plow to social media for data in times of crisis. At the start of 2020, Twitter conversations about health and wellness increased 54%.

Merely to engage with the public for the long term, y'all need to regularly provide valuable content that educates and informs.

For instance, the Mayo Clinic creates a social video series to cover popular health and wellness topics. The "Mayo Dispensary Minutes" are curt, informative, and engaging. The videos regularly rack up more than than 10,000 views.

The information needs to be credible, of course. And true. But you can become artistic and entertaining if that makes sense for your brand.

For instance, Dr. Zubin Damania is meliorate known on social as ZDoggMD. His well-produced social videos provide valuable health information while countering questionable and untrue claims. He has built a community of more than 2.3 million followers on his Facebook folio.

To lighten up what could otherwise become a adequately heavy folio, he as well posts comedic videos from his alter ego Medico Vader:

Make sure the tone y'all use is appropriate for your brand personality. The Mayo Clinic videos and the Doctor Vader videos are both engaging in their ain way. But it would be very jarring if they exchanged styles.

Also brand sure you choose the correct channel for your message and your intended audience. For example, a recent study from Saudi Arabia constitute the most popular social networks for sharing information about a healthy diet are:

  1. Instagram
  2. YouTube
  3. Snapchat
  4. WhatsApp
  5. Twitter
  6. Facebook

Mind for relevant conversations

Social listening allows you to track social media conversations relevant to your field.

Those conversations can assist you sympathise how people feel about you, your organisation, and your products and services. Yous tin can also learn how they feel about the competition. You might fifty-fifty place new ideas that help guide your social communications strategy.

Social listening is as well a good apply of social media in healthcare to get a sense of how the public is responding to emergent wellness problems.

For case, the Imperial Australian College of Full general Practitioners (RACGP) uses social listening to track health-related trends. This helped them validate telehealth as a priority — they saw 2,000 mentions of the term across social platforms.

#Telehealth has get a vital component of the mix of services GPs offer because of its flexibility, convenience and…

Posted by RACGP on Friday, November 27, 2020

"We already knew that GPs felt this was a component of care that they needed to continue providing to patients," said RACGP. "Nosotros provided our social listening insights to validate that the wider general practice community felt the aforementioned way."

Here are some key terms to heed for on social channels:

  • Your arrangement or practice proper noun and handles
  • Your product name(s), including common misspellings
  • Your competitors' make names, product names, and handles
  • Industry buzzwords: The Healthcare Hashtag Projection is a nifty place to start.
  • Your slogan and those of your competitors
  • Names of key people in your organization (your CEO, spokesperson, etc.)
  • Names of key people in your competitors' organizations
  • Campaign names or keywords
  • Your branded hashtags and those of your competitors

Social media management platforms similar Hootsuite let you to monitor all relevant keywords and phrases across social networks from a unmarried platform.

For more tips and tools on this, bank check out our guide on how to prepare a social listening strategy.

Remain compliant

Ane of the big challenges of social media in healthcare is that healthcare social media accounts are subject to strict rules and regulations. HIPAA compliance is a large one, merely you also need to make certain you follow FDA rules most advertisement.

One of the best-known examples of social media and healthcare clashing in the heart of government involves Kim Kardashian. She endorsed the morning sickness drug Diclegis in an Instagram mail service. Her postal service contained a link to hazard data and limitations of utilize. But, the FDA determined this information needed to exist within the postal service itself.

Later on a stern FDA warning, she had to replace the post. Here's the updated version after the FDA warning:

By the time Kim'due south sister Khloe Kardashian endorsed the migraine medication Nurtec ODT on Twitter this twelvemonth, pharma companies had figured out how to effectively include take chances data within a video mail service:

Simply it'southward not simply celebrity endorsements that can heighten FDA concerns. For example, so far in 2021, the FDA has sent 21 warning letters that specifically reference claims made on Instagram accounts.

You lot don't desire lawyers writing your social media posts. Merely y'all might desire lawyers (or other compliance experts) to review posts before they go live. This is especially true for major announcements or posts that are particularly sensitive.

Hootsuite can get more of your team involved without increasing compliance risk. People from across your organization can contribute social media content. Then, simply those who sympathize the compliance rules can approve a post or push it live.

Your organisation needs a social media strategy and a social media style guide.

You should as well accept guidelines for the use of social media for healthcare professionals. A social media policy for healthcare employees is as well a skillful bet.

These help get anybody on the aforementioned page and ensure your strategy aligns with relevant rules and regulations. Include clear, HIPAA-compliant guidelines for handling patient information in social posts.

Don't forget to keep an middle on the comments users go out on your social media posts and profiles, too. These can also create compliance concerns.

It's always good practice to respond to and engage with social comments. After all, no i likes talking into a void. Your followers will be more likely to engage with your content if they get a response from someone on your squad.

When compliance is involved, yous may need to accept extra steps. For example, you lot should remove comments that heighten privacy concerns. Also watch out for inappropriate claims.

Stay secure

It's important to put security guidelines in place for your healthcare social media channels. Y'all demand to be able to revoke access for anyone who leaves the organization.

With Hootsuite, you can manage permissions from one centralized dashboard. That means you can always control admission to social channels. Here'due south a video that shows how to ready organizational permissions in Hootsuite:

Integrations can aid farther secure your healthcare social media marketing channels. For instance, AETracker tin help you lot observe and report issues like product complaints and off-label usage. Y'all'll observe out as they happen, and then you can take action right away.

Social Safeguard can help screen your social posts against your social media policies. This prevents non-compliant posts from going alive.

The elementary truth is that patients and the public use social media to detect healthcare resources. They utilize information technology to look for information, discover support, and make healthcare decisions.

There are some challenges of social media in healthcare. But the use of social media in healthcare as well presents incredible new opportunities.

Social media is a slap-up platform to share important wellness information. It's also a key place to get together real-fourth dimension research and insights. Nearly of import, social media is a mode to support patients and the public in an easy-to-admission and timely fashion.

Hootsuite makes it easy for healthcare professionals and organizations to manage social media. From a single dashboard y'all can schedule posts on every network, monitor relevant conversations, and track functioning—all while staying secure and compliant.

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